There is an ever increasing demand for vehicle road wheels to personalize and customize an automobile. At the same time, it is desired to provide a wheel which offers a reduction in weight as compared with the standard steel wheels and also provides improved through the wheel ventilation for brake cooling. These demands have frequently been satisfied by wheels cast of magnesium or alluminum alloy. However, because of relative low resiliency, flexibility and brittleness problems associated with such cast metals, vehicle wheels fabricated therefrom are generally considerably more expensive than standard steel wheels.
In addition to difficulties associated with fabrication, there has long been a problem in providing cast metal wheels having an ornamental lace or wire spoke design. This problem resides in the fact that unfinished cast metal, that is, metal whose surface has not been plated or machined, is considered by most people as aesthetically unpleasing. A wire spoke or lace design, however, presents costly machining or plating operations as the surfaces to be plated or machined are not on a common or nearly common plane to be accessible to machine work such as polishing or grinding. Accordingly, the art, as commented on in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,884,527 and 4,530,542, continues to experience difficulties in providing a reasonable cost cast metal wire or lace wheel.